Federico Durand may be my favorite ambient musician active today. His music mines all of the life-affirming escapism of the genre without any of the all-too-frequent drawbacks: it’s beautiful, but not saccharine; tranquil, but not boring; delicate, but not naïve. 2018’s Pequeñas Melodías remains a clear standout, its fairy-tale world of sunlit dust and music box twinkles putting me to sleep on many a restless night; however, I can already see the recent Herbario surpassing it. “Through a year of uncertainty, from March 2020 to March 2021,” Durand “composed this album in the same way a botanist would have proceeded: collecting and preserving simple, broken and hypnotic melodies.” This humbly herbaceous approach, coupled with the longer, looser structures of many of the tracks, lets the music lilt with gossamer weightlessness like a cloud of seed-pods fluttering slowly to the ground. Throughout the various pieces, each named for one of Durand’s favorite plant species, a floral elegy neither joyful nor melancholy take shape, and at its core lies the potent yet ultimately neutral and apathetic sublimity of nature, a plane of existence infrangibly parallel to our own that can be admired and give inspiration but never be truly understood. Gorgeous closer “Laurel” is the purest illustration of that, somehow approximating the transcendence one can only achieve while sitting next to a rushing stream in the sun.

I often describe particularly unmusical music using physical-action metaphors like “scraped off,” “discarded,” “sloughed,” “scavenged,” etc. Many of these motions don’t necessarily change the materials they’re affecting in any fundamental or chemical way; they simply involve creating new uses and formations. With INDEXESS, I’m not sure any of the aforementioned descriptive tools apply better than something more like “molder,” “ferment,” “decompose.” This inaugural release from Columbus, OH–based netlabel Blue Static Records is to music as rancid black putrefaction liquid is to living organic beings. Both “CREEP” and “STYG” are barely there, just gusts of distant, frail distortion susurrating like a sickly summer garbage-day breeze slithering through a tattered windsock, yet even with such a paltry presence one cannot escape a feeling of invasive, cloying filthiness. I’m reminded a bit of Strange Mammal of Doom’s Are Strange 2, an album I wrote about in April, in that both works gain quite a bit from their own obstinate lack of structure and convention. INDEXESS, though, feels more antagonistic, even misanthropic, which sounds hyperbolic until you hear the final two tracks—especially “BRICKD,” an impenetrable wall of squall that would make even the most overzealous dental hygienist with wax-clogged ears lose their mind. All together, a cavernous abandoned station in the middle of nowhere filled with shrieking industrial ghosts: one of our last stops on the train ride to the end of music.

Unsurprisingly, there are more than a few falling objects on this new release from sound artist Anna Lerchbaumer (among other things, the creator and proponent of the acclaimed “mayonoise” technique), but Earth’s gravitation is far from the only force at work. A great deal of attention was paid to placement and spatiality during the original recordings, so there would be a lot of compelling density to explore even if they were left unprocessed, but Lerchbaumer puts her materials through the proverbial wringer, or perhaps a series of multiple proverbial wringers. On Falling Objects, the natural kinesis of the dropped, agitated, and otherwise affected items is extrapolated into complex, artificial concrète arrays, not exactly upending the presence of conventional space but certainly building upon, gouging, and even distorting it. Interspersed throughout the suite of three short tracks are speech samples presumably lifted from some sort of physics education program, and the basic, familiar explanations given by the voice form a delightful contrast with the gleeful deconstructions and reorientations that take place in between. Lerchbaumer’s methodology allows for the occasional unexpected noise intrusion or frenetic glitch spasm, but the piecemeal object layouts most often coalesce into lush gardens of resonating tactility that echo the work of contemporaries Rie Nakajima and Stephanie Cheng Smith. The relationship between the diminutive duration of Falling Objects and its artistic fecundity is quite analogous to that of the dissonance between a presumed lack of musical value in everyday objects and their actual musical value: one might make an initial prediction of inauspiciousness, but after experiencing them no one can deny the strength of the results.

Ever since departing from a stylistic focus on conventional electronica and hip-hop with 2017’s Riverside Burrows, Austrian artist Fabian Holzinger (as Abby Lee Tee) has been honing the delicate art of concise phonography, using various nature recordings and animal sounds to sculpt soundscapes that seethe with minute detail. Of all the tapes in this new vein that he’s put out in the past five years or so, the Imaginary Friends series on Czaszka is probably most illustrative of what I’d personally place at the core of Holzinger’s sound: complex, disarming bricolages of often quite familiar sounds framed with a clarity and intentionality that distorts the boundary between organics and artifice. At the Beaver Lodge I has less of that element of “intelligent design,” if you will, but “complex” and “disarming” still apply to these two five-minute cuts of noises made by beavers residing in a lodge on the Danube. Like some of the other fauna that have appeared in various Abby Lee Tee works, the beavers’ nasal vocalizations are both pleasing and grating; not in any abrasive or confrontational sense, but more due to a mild uncanny valley effect—these sounds are sometimes just too human. But they aren’t, of course, and something else this first installment in a planned series reminds us of is that beavers have their own lives and livelihoods: gnaw-whittling the perfect stick into the perfect shape for the dam, caterwauling in the early morning rain, crooning together in collective chorus. At the Beaver Lodge I, despite its conspicuous succinctness, perhaps marks yet another new direction for Holzinger, one in which intricacies of capture and composition don’t aim to create new worlds, but instead to reveal existing ones.

The quantity of releases on Bandcamp tagged with the “annoying” descriptor is much higher than one would think. In terms of my own personal definition of what the word means in this context, many of the entries aren’t very accurate, but there are some gems—Rich Teenager’s Sardanapalus, Klöße‘s debut tape, Nice Piles’ self-titled—that not only provide excellent music but also exemplify true “annoyance”: the intentional, aesthetic use of traditionally unpalatable structures or materials. Though Funeral doesn’t have the tag, it certainly deserves it; I imagine, what with the combination of the title of the opening track being “Horny Hentai in the Horse’s House” and its uncompromising, volatile causticity, that there are few things your family or friends would yell at you to turn off faster. Costa Rica–based artist Mante wields these elements of rather unsavory sonic pollution with the same dexterity and virtuosity as would any producer of much more traditional harsh or cut-up noise, gluing together strands and gobs into freely mobile audio sculptures whose intricacies don’t sacrifice the raw auras of obscenity radiated by their individual components. And if you thought the first piece and the following “Overwhelming Dislike” were bad, wait until you get to “Cheap Codes from Hoes,” a cacophonous, hyperactive, completely irreverent collage of Discord tones, Minecraft gameplay audio, and masticated streamer commentary that is probably the best thing I’ve heard all year. “Bajo las Nalgas del Kilimanjaro” too feels like some sort of bleak post-internet exhumation, built upon an ongoing battle scene sample from God knows where (and don’t bother asking him; he sure as hell isn’t here). This latter half of Funeral is the type of stuff I want to see more of from Mante, but overall the brief album is a whiplash-inducing assault on the ears that may be literally impossible to forget.

Songs from Pandaville is the sound of hope. Oh what an auspicious future we as a society might have if there were more people like Eli Neuman-Hammond doing all they can to engender a love for free artistic expression among our youngest comrades. In addition to the innate intrigue of the sound pieces themselves, which were performed by each of Neuman-Hammond’s students individually and collectively on a setup consisting of “amplified water, stones, plastic and metal vessels, voice, cups, brushes, water bottles, and bubble wrap” and may or may not be the results of the ragtag graphic scores pictured on the cover, much of the delight in listening to this collection arises between the seams. Ari, a lad after my own heart, immediately asks to hear his recording before it’s even finished; Lena expresses appreciation for the specific sonic actions she conducted over the course of her performance; participants play rock-paper-scissors to see who goes next and compliment and chant for each other’s efforts; impromptu, impassioned cries of “CUP SOLO!” abound. Any group of kids who spend more than a few minutes together develop a sort of temporary dialect that is a perfectly inclusive summation of literally every ounce of energy contained within each, and that energy comes through with infectious appeal on boisterous ensemble cuts like “Rayford’s Trio.” The suite of outdoor “live” recordings that conclude the release are probably the most “purely” acoustically pleasing, with the distant squealing of breaks and natural ambience melding wonderfully with the diverse offerings from Haddie, Rafa, Nico, Maisie, and Mira. “Banana bread!”

(Don’t forget; Lena’s birthday is coming up again in a week, so send her your salutations.)

In what may already be one of, if not the culmination of a fantastic calendar year for harsh electronic music, Portuguese mainstay Narcolepsia and Hiisi Production’s from the artist’s home country of Finland team up for the monstrous Kulotus, a double-CD anthology of twelve Umpio recordings from the past decade. Other than Bizarre Uproar, there isn’t too much noise that makes it over from the Land of a Thousand Lakes with much oomph left (that I’ve heard about, at least… and I’d love to be proven wrong), but Umpio has been churning out increasingly interesting music since 2009, and now uninitiated listeners (including myself) can get a summative look into his stylistic and creative development throughout the ensuing years. Texturally intricate, dizzyingly detailed, and selectively intense, each and every recording included on Kulotus is its own overwhelming onslaught of whirling kinesis, the unique result of a refined system of oscillators, effects, and feedback manipulation pushed to heights that consistently flirt with the atom-splittingly primordial. We’re at the mercy of violent chain reactions, scalding Velcro-rip abrasions, and tectonic roils from deep within the earth—naïve volcano-voyeurs on the hunt for sounds whose potency is, to say the least, incompatible with the human eardrum. This definitely feels like a collection of various material, but it’s more than atmospherically coherent all together, and 80+ minutes ends up feeling more like 40. Not the worst way to experience ten years of fire and brimstone, or whatever.

Poland’s Gates of Hypnos netlabel has been putting out some of the best material in contemporary wall noise since its inception last year, already boasting an impressive catalog of over a hundred forward-thinking releases by established and unfamiliar names alike, and Anew (perhaps somewhat ironically) is no different. The 31-minute piece marks Thai project Painflux’s second solo appearance on an external label (following a number of splits and Pratyahara on ░░ HNW ░░ ) and fits GoH’s eclectic, descriptivist aesthetic to a T. Like a massive robotic butterfly trying to escape from a thick, sticky chrysalis, gummy goop and oil and chitin clogging creaking joints and sheet-metal wings, Anew embraces intense textures both organic and synthetic. Vine-like stems of bulbous crepitation are tightly wrapped into a single shifting mass that seems to at once be implanted in the center channel and free to extend its countless tendrils outward—it’s like a tremendously complex cluster of rhizomes bulging with so many nutrients that its aboveground form is nearly animate. Fully executing this “rattling cage” type of wall in terms of sound design is quite difficult, but when done well, as is certainly the case here, the effect is spellbinding, even immobilizing. After a long enough time caught up in the strangling grip of these flagitious flora, the listener themselves begins to feel caught in the trap, and not long after realizes here is where they were always meant to be (pay no attention to the root that has covertly replaced your brain stem).

Several promising new labels have either started or found their stride in 2021. That latter milestone, unsurprisingly, looks different for everyone; for smaller, understated labels with narrow focuses, such as Crooked Branch Collections from Nashville, it might mean simply putting out their first single-artist tape. And the eponymous debut by Hit with the Joke Hammer, an unknown, previously undocumented project, is a more than fitting entry to mark such progress. Confined to muffled, claustrophobic mono and delivering a sickly, understated intensity that just barely tickles the fringes of what I would call “noise,” the concise C24 complements CBC’s minimal artisan aesthetic with its slipshod humility. Unidentifiable concrète recordings, which originally could have been anything from trickling water and domestic doldrums to repurposed feedback loops and shortwave fiddles, rake across rusty tape heads with a lethargic, tedious sputter a la UVC (though without the same sense of exteriority). In passing, each of the four short tracks seems to twitch and amble with almost indistinguishable gaits, and it’s only through close attention that the exact character of the specific agitations can be identified—nuance that one might not expect based on the unapologetic castoff-ness of the music. Recent readers are almost certainly aware of my fondness for stuff like this; if you possess similar tastes, definitely do not skip this one.

When choosing a title for an audio document of improvised music, you really can’t go wrong with Impermanence; it’s not exactly original, in terms of either the specific genre or music as a whole, but it will never not be accurate. In the case of Violeta García (a cofounder of the splendid TVL Rec imprint) and Émilie Girard-Charest’s first meeting as a duo, the word accumulates a more unique meaning because of the two musicians’ chosen instruments. Cellos are often associated with their ability to emit sustained, “eternal” tones, and are utilized as such in anything from acoustic drone music old and new to traditional classical and chamber accompaniments. But in García’s and Girard-Charest’s hands they frequently become anything but eternal, instead acting as boundless surfaces for all sorts of extended technique scrabble, auxiliary object play, short stilted bowings, and barely-there below-the-bridge vapors. Despite the differences between the two artists’ careers (García operates almost entirely within improvisational contexts, while Girard-Charest primarily performs solo and ensemble compositions) their musical interplay is superb; some of the best moments of their interactions surface when both take a step back from volume and intensity and deal in quiet timbral harmonies of scrape and rustle, but the louder stretches are excellent too, especially the high-octane tense trills and punchy pizzicato plunks of segment III—which in turn dissolve into and rematerialize from their own forms of sonic reticence. And the near-apocalyptic resin-shredding of V is simply breathtaking. To think that my first reaction when I found this release was, Two cellos? Yeah, right.